Stepping Up
by fragrantfields
Summary: A Major Crimes, Sharon Raydor-Rusty Beck story Rusty's hiding something, trying to fix things on his own again...Sharon knew the final visit with Daniel Dunn had been bad, but she hadn't expected this. Warnings for child abuse.


**Spoilers for Season Finale**

Silence had fallen over the kitchen as Sharon put away the last of the clean dishes from the dishwasher. Not that she was snooping, exactly, but she wasn't deaf, either, and the rhythmic clicks of the keyboard on Rusty's laptop, sign that he was moving steadily through his assignment for tomorrow, had changed. Now it was a few keystrokes, then a long, long pause before another few keystrokes.

It sounded like it was time for a homework break.

She paused outside his partially cracked door. "Rusty? How's the paper coming?" She waited a few beats. "Can I come in?"

"Um…sure. Actually, I finished it a little while ago." He still wore his blue school shirt and khaki pants.

"You really must have wanted to get it done. You haven't even taken time to change."

She stood in the doorway, noticing he had shifted the laptop so she couldn't see what was on the screen. A pad and pencil were by the computer with a few scribbled notes. His face was pale, or maybe it was the contrast between the marks still visible on his face and his usual fair skin. His eyes held that hunted anxiety she associated with his early days with her. She took a deep breath and walked into his room.

"You're pretty jumpy…is something wrong?" A refrain of _don't be porn/but if it is it's not the end of the world/but please don't be porn_ ran through her head like an old family joke.

"Nothing's wrong, Sharon. I was just looking up some stuff." His cheeks had started to show a faint flush.

"Yeah? Like what?" She sat on the edge of his bed, making her voice light and friendly.

He sighed. "I don't care if you see it…actually, I've got some questions I'm not sure about…but promise me you won't think I'm weird or anything."

"I've got a pretty high tolerance for weird, Rusty. I think I can handle whatever it is."

He turned the screen towards her. Pictures of small children, infants, toddlers, against a lavender and white background under a heading: Shaken Baby Syndrome.

"Okay…you said you had some questions?" Sharon gently probed, wanting to flood him with a barrage of inquiry: had he done something? Did he suspect something had been done to him? She looked at the smiling baby faces and then at his worried frown, and knew she'd hear more if she let him tell her his own way.

"It's not just babies, it says. I've seen the posters—they always had some about not shaking your baby up at the free clinic I used to go to—but I didn't know about older kids. This says it can screw kids up when they're four or five."

She nodded gravely. "That's true. I've never worked a homicide of an older child by shaking, but I've heard of that happening." Her heart sank as she saw the beginning of a tear in the corner of his eye.

She got up. "Let's go in the living room. Looks like you need to talk something through." He wiped his eye quickly and nodded.

Rusty was quick to take his usual spot on the couch, in the right-hand corner. Sharon took her own place at his left, folding her hands to keep them from clenching.

"Sharon, I didn't tell you everything about the night Daniel hit me." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

She nodded and waited like she had all the time in the world.

"You don't look surprised," he said, some of his old mistrust coming through.

"Most people don't tell me everything the first go-around." She gave him a half-smile. "I'm used to it."

"Okay…cool." His look turned uncertain. "See, I didn't run away from Daniel right away. He thought I did, but I know what it's like to try to get a taxi when you've got blood on your face…forget it, right? So I'm in the woods near his house, her house, whatever, trying to clean up a little."

Sharon fought down a wave of sickness at the image of him trying to make himself presentable enough after a beating to ask for help. "I see. Go on."

"So his fiancée and him start yelling in the back yard, and her kids come out, you know? Like they're curious? And she gets mad and goes inside, but the little kid—the one that's about three? She starts bawling for her mom or whatever, and Daniel can't get her to stop.…"

She could feel her own tears starting to well up, for the little girl, for the young boy who has taken on another adult burden. Schooling her voice to "detective" mode, she asked quietly, "Then what happened?"

"He, um…he picked her up about to his chest, and shook her three or four times. He shook her pretty hard…told her to 'quit her goddamn crying'. Sorry."

"That's okay, Rusty. Go on."

He sighed and sank into the cushions, deflated. "He just put her back down and shoved her towards the house, and she ran to her mom, I guess. I should have…I dunno, my face was bleeding, my eye was swelling shut, and I…I ran to find a cab."

She moved one seat cushion closer. "Listen to me, Rusty. You took care of your own safety first. That's okay. That's what you're supposed to do. Whatever happened to that little girl…it's not your fault." She took his hand for a quick squeeze, then released it.

"Yeah, I get that." He wiped at his eyes again. "But I was thinking...I don't know what kind of a Dad he would be to a kid he raised, right? Like if I'd always been with him, if I hadn't been screwed up by my mom and everything.

"I don't…_get_…much about dads, you know? But boyfriend of kids' moms…I know a crapload about that. I _totally_ get that."

Sharon thought she'd give years off her life to go back in time and right even _some _of the wrongs that had been done to this bright, caring kid.

"You're afraid he hurt, or will hurt, one of her children."

The earnest look in his eyes was killing her.

"Yeah, I mean…it's going to be years before either of them can fight back or anything, and…they've got a mom and she seems protective now, but…." He looked away. "Moms can change."

"Not all moms, Rusty." She knew her eyes were shining with unshed tears, but couldn't bring herself to look away.

He showed the bare trace of a smile. "Well, not ones like you, all bad-ass and armed and stuff. If some guy tried to manipulate you, you'd probably be busting caps in him, right?"

"Something like that, yeah." She gave him a wry grin, remembering her thoughts about shooting Daniel between the eyes. She blinked until her vision cleared.

"It sounds like you want to make a report about child abuse."

He nodded gravely. "Yeah, but I didn't know if that was enough evidence, or if there was enough probable cause, or…"

"Honey, you don't need any of that to make a report. All you need is a suspicion that a child's being hurt or neglected, and you can call it in to the hotline. Let them worry about evidence. That's their job."

Her voice had taken on that instructive cadence she used when she was working with a rookie, and for a second, she could see the man Rusty would be, focused on starting to learn whatever ropes were put in front of him.

"I just call and say what I saw? I don't have to say anything about how it's dangerous even if it's not a baby?"

"Rusty, you really can let the professionals do this. And they're not going to jump to take the girls away from their mother, either, if she's willing to keep the girls away from him. It's going to fall on Daniel."

His brow cleared and he looked a little more like a sixteen year old again. "Okay. Can you look up the number?"

She tapped on the keypad until the search engine popped up the number of the Child Protection Hotline, then handed him the phone.

"You want me to stay here while you call?" She wanted to give him whatever moral support he needed, but knew sometimes she herself got rattled, trying to focus on a phone call when other people were next to her…or at least she had when she had been his age.

He stood up and went to the window overlooking the twinkling lights of their part of LA.

"Nah. I got this." He turned away as she heard him say "Yeah, I want to make a report about child abuse."

A trick of the light against the outside darkness made Rusty's reflection seem ten years older. Sharon felt like if she squinted her eyes right, she could see the man he would become in time. A man who would hold a hint of Andy, and Provenza, and Tau, and Julio…a little bit of Buzz, and Dr. Morales…and nothing whatsoever, not even a trace, of Daniel "the Donor" Dunn.

She hugged that thought tight, and looked forward to the day she'd share it with him.


End file.
